That snowy Saturday

The morning I went back to Saint Rémy with Robyn and Alicia. It snowed. This is how much it snowed. Who would get excited about this much snow? Well, this is a once-in-three years event in Avignon, so a lot of people would.





In Saint Rémy I showed Alicia and Robyn around the posh shops and we went to the Christmas market which was really nice. Then we stopped by Nostradamus' childhood home. Nearby is a picture of him on a wall. Me and Nostradamus:




After about 12 hours of travel I'm home. Yay!

Saw this online, and I know at least the U of Cers reading this will think its funny.

It's snowing!

in AVIGNON!  Unfortunately it's just warmer than freezing so it won't stick.


A clarification on my last post:  After reading it my mom said, "so, you really like Dodd," I didn't say that, I said I like his voice. A lot.

The Democratic Debate

CNN Europe is showing the democratic debate tonight. I've never really heard Sen. Chris Dodd speak before. I've read his statements, but speaking, it's a whole 'nother ball game. He has a good voice to start with, but a great manner of speaking. He sounds like a cross between a Kennedy and a classic movie star. If this election was on radio only, he'd win. I almost want to vote for him just to be able to hear him talking all the time.

One Week Left

Exactly one week from now, I'll be on a train on my way to Paris, ready to fly home the next morning! I can't wait to go home, see my family, see Pete, and see my dogs. I can wait but not so easily so buy some clothes out of the country that has made me think that 85 euros for a big scarf is only slightly expensive and not crazy-expensive (I didn't buy it, but I visit it sometimes.) Ive also been making a to-eat list: celery with peanut butter, pizza, cheddar cheese, Sam Adams, Yuengling, and moist cake. Of course I'm sure once I get home all I'll want is olive tapenade, aioli, and emmental cheese. Actually, I'll never want emmental cheese. Its the standard cheese here, on almost everything, and right now I'm just working on liking it. If I get drunk, I can count on a kebab-frites (basically a Gyro sandwich with fries piled on top) craving. In writing this, I just gave myself a craving for perhaps the best of French food: a molten chocolate cake. Enough sidetracking, or as the French say: let us return to our sheep. I'm sad that I'm going home and am not going to see that many people, but mostly I just want to hang out at home with my brother, play with my dogs, listen to NPR, do a puzzle with my dad and uncle, make Christmas cookies with my mom, and then go celebrate New Years with Pete. I downloaded Sufjan Stevens' Christmas album and am getting thoroughly in the spirit. I love Christmas.

GRE words in the unlikliest of places

The big test is tomorrow, and I have been doing well on my practice ones. After some practice essay-writing, I hopped on to the internet for my usual indulgence in Politico.com and gofugyourself.com It's a dangerous mix or brain-numbingly stupid arguments about smart things (on the message boards, that is), and a brain-numbingly stupid topic written about by clever people. Once I get sick of one, I'm ready to go back to the other. The Politico message boards have given me good practice in breaking down flawed arguments - fantastic GRE prep, but I didn't expect to get a boost from my other guilty pleasure site. Low and behold, this tidbit about Keira Knightly "I will say that, though maybe I'm just inured to her physique by now, she appears merely naturally thin and no longer as perilously bony as she did at some of the Pirates premieres." INURED, I was just looking at that in my vocab book. Spectacular. Now I definitely won't forget it.

This is ourselves...under pressure!

Just moved to Avignon, haven't unpacked yet. No one is sure who can give me a visa I need to get back into France after I leave for Christmas, and I'm taking the GRE on Monday. This is how I feel:

Did the Indians cut down all the trees?

Had a great class today with 7 year olds. Great, not in the sense of them learning English, because they didn't learn any, but great as in entertaining. Last week we made hand turkeys for thanksgiving. But in France, they eat turkey for Christmas, and by the time we had finished our Turkeys, they had forgotten about Thanksgiving and started thinking about Christmas. So today I re-explained Thanksgiving to them, this time in more detail, and asked if they had any questions. I clearly had not mentioned Indians the last time (there is no PC French term, so I'm just going to go with Indians here) I asked if there were any questions. Wow. There were a few good questions like where in the USA the Indians lived. I explained that they were forced west by the colonists over time. Then a student asked why the Indians would teach the colonists how to grow food. That got right to the point. But most of the conversation went like this: S=student M=me T=teacher
S: So there were Indians at the time?
M: Yes and there still are, just not how you think of them.
T: Without the feather.
S: Were there crocodiles at the time?
M: Yes, but not where the first thanksgiving was.
S: Were there crocodiles during the time of the Dinosaurs?
M: Something like that
S: And the Indians lived in tepees?
M: Actually the Thanksgiving Indians lived in long houses made of wood. Other groups lived in tepees.
S: Oh! So was it the Indians who cut down all the trees?
S: Were there scorpions at the time?
M: No, we still have trees, and there were scorpions but not in that part of the USA.
S: Snakes?
M: Yes.
S: Do turkeys live in the desert? How did they grow food in the desert?
M: The eastern US is forest, not desert, like the north of France. There were no scorpions there. Turkeys don't live in the desert they live in the forest. Where thanksgiving was.
S: Did the Indians have horses? And the cowboys!
S: You know those big saws that two people use together? Is that an Indian tool? Is that how they cut down all the trees?
M: The Indians didn't cut down all the trees. That big saw was a colonist's tool.
S: Oh! Did they use their tomahawks to cut down the trees? Were there Bison?
M: There were Bison, but in the West, this happened in the East, in the forest.
S: Did they have hatchets? How did they hunt the bison?
S: So there weren't scorpions? Like in France?

So on and so on for half an hour. I'm going to make a map with nature pictures for each region of the USA. I'm going to have to bring them pictures because I don't think I managed to convince them that we still have trees in the USA, and I'm pretty sure they blame the Indians for the deforestation.

Back Home

Even though one out of two elementary schools were closed, even though I was told not to work last strike, even though this one was supposed to be bigger, I only had one out of 7 teachers striking, so I had a full day of work. It was too bad since Julia was visiting, but there are certainly worse things in the world. No matter what I do, no matter how bad it seems some of my lessons fail, the kids still like me, and there's nothing that cheers you up better on 8:30 on a morning you'd rather not be working than catching in the corner of your eye a little girl doing the fists-clenched elbows-to-the waist "Yes!" motion when she sees you walk into the room, or to have a classful of kids say "awwwwwww" when they find out that because of rescheduling, they are having science class with another guest teacher instead of English class that week.

Last Saturday I went to Villeneuve-les-Avignon, a city established across the river from Avignon by France to monitor that city when it was the seat of the Pope. Much of Provence belonged to the Pope during the middle ages, and when their was unrest in Italy, the Papal seat was moved for a time to Avignon. Villeneuve has a fort inside of which is an abbey with beautiful gardens. Despite unseasonable below-freezing temperatures, Robyn (an assistant in Avignon) and I decided we would go see the Gardens and spend the day outside. The first picture is of snails on the railing of the bridge between Avignon and Villeneuve-les-Avignon. It was about as cold as it gets all year that day and I bet that was the warmest place they could find. The picture of me was taken in Villeneuve, with Avignon in the background. The rest are in the gardens of the abbey within the fort.

Bon Strike Bad Strike?

Ongoing French strikes mean that Julia's train - the only train for a reasonable price - was cancelled. I got her booked on a train, but with the metro on strike also, getting to the station will be an adventure. However, the strike also makes it likely I won't be working this Tuesday, which means more time with Julia. The title of this post is in reference to a Canadian film Bon Cop Bad Cop, which I hear s quite good. Apartment searching is moving along. I met a potential roommate, who I would like to live with, I'll be seeing the apartment, which is currently being renovated, soon. Julia arrives tomorrow and the Butcher is stringing me along with the Turkey. Who knows if we'll get one.

St. Rémy is lovely...

...if you're middle-aged to old, rich, living with a significant other, and have a car, or if your visiting for a day or week-end. However, for someone like me, it is expensive and lonely. I decided a bit ago that I wanted to move at some point to Avignon. I thought I would go after the Christmas holiday. Susie doesn't have as much time as me (she's leaving at the beginning of February) and she's also been fed up with the fact that there's no young people in St Remy and with our other roommate not being very welcoming or considerate so she decided to move right away, she doesn't have time to wait. She's the only reason I was staying in St Remy really, so I moved up my apartment search. I found a couple of cute studios in my price range and I'm meeting Saturday with a 20-year-old non-smoker looking for a roommate. She said her apartment has a kitchen "for people who like to cook" and she seemed nice over the phone (we had a little trouble understanding each other.) Living with her, I could speak more French and hopefully meet other young French people. While looking for apartment notices, I saw a notice for a theater looking for amateur actors and circus performers to be in their shows. Sounds like my kind of theater so I'm going to see if they want a designer/technician, I can't get paid (and not just because its theater) but I can meet people and have more to do with my time. My next door neighbor, Lynn, (24, English, awesome) is a student at the university in Avignon and she has some long breaks in between her classes so I can always grab a coffee with her or have her over on the days I don't work, so I can still see her. Finally, while for Susie being in Avignon means a lot of commuting, I already commute 2 out of my 3 work days, and those commutes won't get any longer, so I'm only adding one day of commuting. St. Remy is great in its way but there's more for me in Avignon.

Vacation Photos pt. 2

Yelle in concert in Arles (see a couple posts ago)









A Paris-Dakar rally themed ride in Arles







My travel partners Ed, Susie, and Catherine in a park in Montpellier. Behind the monument (not visible) is an aquaduct.








A fountain in the old french-looking part of Montpellier.











A fountain in the new Vegas-looking part of Montpellier.









The town crest of Nimes. There are no crocodiles in Nimes, but there are a number of palm trees because of the crest. It does not reflect the city but rather commemorates Caesar's conquest of Egypt, a recent even when Nimes had the honor of being named a Roman colony which gave the citizens more rights and the city more prestige.





Me in the interior of the Nimes arena, better preserved than the one in Arles, the outside looks much like the Arles one, but it still has its third level.








Looking out from the Nimes Arena onto (i think) the Palais de Justice.













The Maison Carrée, a Gallo-Roman temple.










Me in the gardens in Nimes.








The Tour Magne, a Roman tower built over an older Gallic one. The remains of the Gallic one were destroyed, and the Roman one was nearly destroyed this guy dug it up looking for gold which he though Nostradamus had predicted was there. The kind allowed it as long as he got half of any findings. I went to the top but the sun was in my eyes, so no good pictures of the view over Nimes.



Despite Pete's request, I didn't buy any jeans in Nimes (Denim comes from "de Nimes" where the cloth was born.) After Nimes, I went to Paris where I took no pictures. Then I met my parents in Bruges, Belgium. The pictures taken by my parents and I can be seen here.

Vacation Pictures pt 1 - Arles

I just got back to St. Rémy after almost 2 weeks of vacation, so as I upload my pictures, I'll recap my travels. My last entry was about going to the concert in Arles. The next day, Susie and I did some sightseeing, and here's the proof.



Sad lions in the town hall square.











The flag of the Sous-Prefecture











Susie











The Théâtre Antique (Roman Theater)











The Arena









The Photographer and Susie's feet.







I learned that when roman power waned and other armies started invading the towns, entire villages were built inside the roman arenas, with houses, shops, and later, churches. The walls of the arena were used as protection. It wasn't until a movement for the preservation of historical buildings and restoration swept through Europe in the 19th century that the houses were removed.

Yelle!

On Friday, I went with Susie the roomate to Arles where we went to an Aussie bar called Wallabeer, and then saw a Yelle concert (anyone who saw the youtube video trashing Florian Zeller - that was her singing.) She's a pre-packaged-controversial pop star and all the coolest Arles highschoolers were out to celebrate their 1st day of vacation in style. All the kiddies started moshing to the electropop, which was a bit annoying and made me want to give them a lesson in genres and in not jumping into my beer but the concert, overall, was a lot of fun. The other cool thing to do in Arles, when not seeing Yelle in concert, is riding a bike around and popping up on the back wheel everytime you pass people. They look absolutely ridiculous doing it, and I failed at sneaking a picture of it, but I'm going back with Julia so there's always next time.

Cold and monster faces

The radiators do not work. In fact, I'm sure they work, unfortunately, their isn't any power going to our thermostat. At first, Susie and I couldn't find the thermostat, and Nora, who has lived here for a year, was never around. Then she showed me where it was but wasn't really sure how to work it. I went to the neighbors' today and confirmed that yes, despite what Nora said, the screen was supposed to work. The circuit breaker isn't flipped so we need an electrician, and fast. It has been in the 40s each night this week, which is especially horrible when you're sick like I've been, and my hands haven't stopped being cold for about two days. At least the utility bill for this month will be cheap. (It took me two days to get this message online, we just got heat, 10 minutes before I leave for vacation)

Speaking of being cold, with the sun so strong here, the best technique for keeping warm while waiting for a bus, is to sit in the brightest sun possible. After an hour wait Tuesday, I noticed that night that my nose was red. The picture washed out the color, but its funny nonetheless.


This week has been a week of monster faces, the verb "to have," body parts, and numbers. How many eyes does the monster have? He has 13 eyes.

It feels like Chicago

The Mistral has been blowing for four days now, and it blew the last of the warm air away about two days ago. Today = a boots and heavy wool sweater day for me (with gloves!) and a full winter coat day for the provençaux. I feel like I'm back in Chicago. Hopefully tomorrow will be the last day of the Mistral, which always blows for an odd number of days.

This is the last week of class before the Toussaint (all saints day) vacation. Which is just under 2 weeks long. About half my classes today had to do with Halloween, my favorite being my littlest ones, where we walked like monsters, crawled like spiders, floated like ghosts, and flew like witches and bats, sound effects and all. While French animals do not make the same sounds as American ones, French monsters, ghosts, and witches do.

My favorite thing that happened today, however, was a teacher telling her kids to listen well to the nasal sound in "afternoon" when I said it. The problem was, as you bright people have already figured out, that there isn't a nasal sound in afternoon, what she picked up on was me recovering from a cold.

Which brings me to my last point of the day. I realized last week that I cannot be a teacher. My immune system is not up for spending everyday with cute little germ magnets.

A Market and a Strike

I heard last Saturday that their was going to be a transportation strike today. Then on Monday a teacher handed out a sheet while I was in her class announcing that she and other teachers were also striking on Thursday: there would be someone to look after those of her students who showed up, but there would be no class. So yesterday I called my boss at the school administration and asked her if I should show up to work today. She told me not to. I already don't work Wednesdays or Fridays, so that left me not knowing what to do with myself.
While the transportation workers are protesting Sarkozy's proposal to take away their very early retirement age, which dates back to the days when train conductors shoveled coal all day and thus were allowed to retire a few years before they died of emphysema. Nowadays they have a normal life expectancy but can still retire in their 50s and live off of social security for the rest of their lives. That does need to change. However, the teachers are striking because they want to reduce the number of teachers in schools. I'm teaching in small towns and the schools don't have receptionists. Once classes start, the doors of the school are locked from the outside because their is no one to monitor who could come in. The principals also teach their classes full time, and most elementary school classes have 25-28 students. Their doesn't seem to be teachers to spare, so I do think the teacher's strike is valid.

Yesterday morning I went to the weekly market with my roommate, where I bought lots of vegetables, fresh goat cheese, black olive tapenade, and "scrubland" honey - tasty because scrubland in southern France includes herbs like thyme, lavender, rosemary, germander, savory, oregano, and wild fennel. It was all very cheap, and very tasty. So I've started a tradition of a market-day omelet.



We also went over to the house of our neighbors Lynn and Frank after Lynn popped round to tell us she was skipping class that afternoon. We hung out for a while and had a new awesome treat: Macademia nut icecream with dark chocolate pieces on top. We spent half an hour on the phone with their company and got their wifi to work on my computer by removing the password which for some reason just wasn't working on any computer except Lynn's. So, now I have internet at home! Which means I can skype, and write on this thing more often so that each time I post, its not monstrous. Frank, who is a gardening teacher at the high school, came home and told us about swimming pools where plants are used to clean the water. Sounds really cool.

End of Work Week 1

My schools are all very different. Tuesday I went to the second school. There are only 2 classes there who want my help, and I spent the 1st 15 minutes there being passed around between teachers, then following one around as she looked for more teachers for me to work with - to no avail. So it looks like I will be working only 1 1/2 to 2 hours there instead of 3 - I'm not crying. But it was a disturbing way to start out. At my Thursday school I'm spending 1/2 hour with 5 different classes, and they, unlike the other schools, had the documents that said what the kids were supposed to learn each year, which is helpful. Thursday evening I went out to an Argentinian movie/concert at the local cinema with my roommate Susie and my neighbors Lynn and Frank. The music was really good, and the guy had great stories like, "I wrote this song when I was bumming around France as a street musician on a tourist visa. I overstayed my visa, and the police made me leave the country, but at the Spanish border they required $5 to enter the country, and I didn't have that much money. So I couldn't go into either country, and I wrote this song." The movie was about a Maradona super-fan, it was very funny. Also on Thursday I got food poisoning, which I'm still recovering from, so I'm debating whether or not to go to Avignon this evening to watch the rugby world cup match, or whether I should count on France to win, take it easy, and go watch the final at the hug screen at La Defense in Paris next weekend. I'll be sad it they don;t make it through and I spent the last game that France was in with a stomach ache at home.

Provence is very dry. Looking out from my window, even the greens are tinged with brown. Because of this, like a desert, it doesn't hold heat, which is more and more noticeable as it gets colder. The mornings are cold, afternoons hot, and the evenings cold again. The sun is strong, and its direct light is the source of most of the heat. Even in midday, when I'm sweating in the sun, its chilly in the shade. And with the starkness of the always-sharp sunlight from the always-clear sky, I can't help but think about the astronomy class when I learned about the extreme temperature differences between sun and shade on a land with no atmosphere at all - the moon.

1st day of school/ Marseille photos

It was my 1st day of school today, and I'm pretty excited about the year. The classes are less my own than it was made out to be - I won't be assigning homework or worrying about discipline. Besides that, the teachers varied quite a bit on how engaged they will be in the lessons, probably very dependent on how good the teacher's English is. In France, primary school teachers have to teach a foreign language just like they teach math and French. However, they aren't given much preparation so the levels of the students vary a lot depending on who they've had in the past. And my day ends with the youngest kids so I'll have to keep up the high energy but it will be fun to end each Monday with songs. Tomorrow afternoon I will work in the school of a neighboring town.

As promised, pictures from Marseille, they are small because there were problems uploading them. Oh, well:

A good day

The orientation Marseille was a giant waste of time but the weather was warm and sunny - just about perfect. I went on a boat ride to the cliffs and inlets arouind Marseille, as well as the Chateau d'If of The Count of Monte Cristo fame. About 10 of us went, and we had the whole front of the boat to ourselves. As the sun beat down on our faces and the breeze cooled our backs, we couldn't help but yell "we're in ther fucking south of France!" Another good result of the soul-murderingly terrible orientation: I now have friends in the two cities neighboring St Remy: Avignon and Arles, as well as a friend in the alpine spa/ski town Digne-les-Bains. Guess where I'll be skiing this winter?

Right now its the small victories and defeats that determine whether a day is good or not. Yesterday was great. I woke up and trimmed my hair - always a risk - and it looks good. The England-Australia rugby (world cup) match was a close one, and, St Remy being a vacation town, there were plenty of English around celebrating their win. Plus, as England had been the underdog, their win bode well for the French that evening. Both my parents and Pete called, and despite the internet saying their were no available seats, my mom managed to move my flight home for Christmas up two days. After the match I went to the grocer, and on the way, I found a not-expensive cloth-lined market basket that fits perfectly into the armoire in my room, so I don't need to use my suitcase as my sock and underwear drawer anymore. Plus, the woman at the grocer commented on how pretty the basket was. After dinner, I went out to watch the France-New Zealand rugby match. As I passed by the cafe with wifi,that I come to just about every day, I waved to the patron. He came out and asked me where my computer was. When I said I was watching the match, he told me which cafe had the best TV to watch it on. Then he asked if I was on vacation. I guess I had been coming to the cafe longer than he expected of any anglophone. I told him I was here for work, and would be here for a year. He told me that if I needed anything, help with french, or anything else in my move here, to come in any time and ask him. I had just become a regular, which is hard to do as a foreigner in tourist season. That was the whipped cream on the sundae of a good day, and then, of course, came the cherry: France (the host country of the rugby world cup) won their quarterfinal game against New Zealand (favored to win it all), against the odds and despite horrendous 1st half play. I will not be living in a depressed land, at least not for the next week.

Reunion à Marseille

So, I named my last post "Frankfurt Slideshow" and then, when there were slideshow problems, forgot to change it. Hopefully a simplified version will come soon. I'm still working on getting internet at my apartment, but for most of this week I'm staying in Marseille, and the hotel has wifi.

I was sent an email, probably on friday last week, that I didn't read until yesterday. It was a schedule for the orientation in Marseille that starts tomorrow. They expect most people (including me) to go back and forth from their town to Marseille for the orientation. Some people from the boonies in the Alps are givin a hotel room for three nights. I got a hotel room for one night, the minimum, despite the fact that the bus schedule to my town makes the schedules of the other days impossible, whereas some people from Avignon and Arles (the closest cities to me, and where I have to change from bus to train) got two nights in a hotel when they could very well go back and forth. So, since its impossible for me to get to Marseille by 9am tomorrow because there is no bus early enough into Avignon, I had to get a room for myself tonight. However, I sent a plea to the administration and they got me a room for tomorrow night as well as Wednesday. Depending on the schedule I may have to pay for another room Thursday. But I don't know because under 'Friday' my personal schedule says: individual activity, see your personal schedule. Also because my schedule and the appointment sheet for my extrêmement important doctor's appointment conflict on what day it is.

French Bureaucrats (the original bureaucrats): blending extra hassle with incompetence.

Franfurt Slideshow

Frankfurt and Heidelberg were great. While even France now, the people are quite nice about speaking English to you, in Germany, they seem almost happy about it, which is fortunate, since I couldn't even master "i'm sorry" by reading it. I'm much better when I hear things, and many german words have simply too many syllables and consonants all smushed together to be sensible.

Some thoughts on Germany:

Don't eat german food in Frankfurt, nobody who lives there does, so its bad. Do eat german food in Heidelberg. There, its just food, and its very good. And get dessert with fruits in it, it isn't over sweetened, its perfect (and thus, dangerous.)

Germany is great for shoe shopping. Its got all the european brands without having to contend with those franco-italian small-feet-genes.

I'm now living in St Remy in an apartment with a teacher from the high school and an english assistant who will arrive sunday. Its great, but there are two drawbacks: my roommate smokes like a chimney and there's no internet. The only internet cafe in town is 6 euro for the hour. The same rate as calling the states from a payphone.

Moving

Goodbye Home...








































Hello Europe...

It's not labor day in france

Sunday before last, Ms. Labadie, the woman in charge of welcoming me to St Remy said she would check that Monday about the details of the housing the offered to me, including its address so I could send myself a package and when I could move in. It's now been a week since she was supposed to get back to me. I understand French time, I understand provencal time, but its getting ridiculous. I went back through my emails to make sure I didn't offend her by mistake, but everything seems correct and never did I mistakenly slip into the informal "tu." I don't want to pester her, and I don't when is too eary to email her again according to the rules of politesse.

American Gladiators

Why do I have to leave now, when the moment I've longed for has finally come: the return of American Gladiators.

A Good Week

Weeks to Departure: 3.

Pete visited this week, so I felt bad spending half the time he was here on the phone or internet dealing with moving business. But I finally had success in making arrangements, and as the cliché goes: when it rains, it pours.

My mom has a meeting in Frankfurt, Germany starting the 18th so I thought, instead of flying to France, I'll fly to Germany and vacation with my mom, then get to France from there by train.  It should be easy.  The train would have cost $200-$300, and taken about 23 hours and 3 transfers, no thank you.  Flying wasn't much better, the only flights from Frankfurt to Marseille under $600 took at least 7 hours, due to long stopovers, and got me into Marseille around 11pm, which wasn't too appealing either.  After days of looking for alternatives and finding none, I finally realized that thanks to Star Alliance, I could frequent flyer my way between the two cities.  (Phew.)

In only a few hours on the phone, I got out of two phone contracts without a fee (yay!), and most of the rest of my week was devoted to looking for an affordable appartment in one of the trendiest and most expensive towns in the south of France. On the day of Pete's departure, I finally got an email from someone at the main school I'll be working at. They have a place for me to stay at the town highschool. I don't hve any idea what its like, but it will do temporarily at least.  Guess I should ahve spent more time with Pete, and just let things fall into place.  
If only that were my way.

What's in a name?

"Respelido" is the word in Prouvènçau (a dialect of Occitan (langue d'oc) particular to Provence also known as Provençal or Provençal Occitan) which means "Renaissance." Provençal and closely related languages were once spoken throughout the south of France but starting with the reign of Charlemagne, the language of northern France (langue d'oil) gained dominance. In 1539 the Edict of Villers-Cotterêts decreed that the northern form of French should be adopted nationwide for administration and commerce (and of course, public education). In the late 19th Century, Frédéric Mistral, a resident of St.-Rémy (where I'll be living) and a group of authors called the Félibrige wrote in Provençal in an attempt to revive the language. Mistral wrote the words to a song called "La Respelido Prouvènçau" (The Provençal Renaissance) which celebrated the culture and products of Provence, and called speaking Provençal "the greatest right" of the people of Provence. The Félibrige was not able to revive the Provençal language, but Mistral did win the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1904. And despite the fact that the only Provençal I'll probably see in an entire year will be on street signs, the culture of the region has managed to stay healthy despite the influx of tourists. Named after the song of it's son, the cultural museum of St.-Rémy is called: La Respelido.  See the words and hear the tune of La Respelido by follwing this link.

Now it's real

I went to Washington D.C. this weekend and visited Vanessa, who is finishing up her State Department internship. Today, I went to the French embassy and got my visa de long sejour. It's still over a month before I head over to France to be an English teaching assistant, but I figured visa day would be a better day than most to start up this blog. Until I leave, I'll post occaisionally about the past and present of the Alpilles region of Provence where I'll be living. To start, the image bars at the top and bottom of the blog are details of a painting which Vincent Van Gogh painted while staying at the insane asylum in the monastary of Saint Paul de Mausole right outside the town I'll be living in: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. The monastary operates an asylum on its grounds to this very day.